We operate STIRR The streaming platform you can actually own.

A fan-owned free streaming platform with local news at the core. Seven years in market. Building the operating layer for community-owned media at platform scale.

Claim Your Owner's Pass Experience STIRR Investor & Press
8M+
App Installs
Roku · Fire TV · Samsung TV Plus · Apple TV · iOS · Android
38
Station Partners
Sinclair · Hubbard · Griffin Media
24%
U.S. Households
Reached through partner broadcast
02 About

We bought a brand. We're building the platform.

Thinking Media acquired STIRR from Sinclair — brand and installs only, no platform, no content, no engineering. We rebuilt all of it within sixty days and relaunched the platform across every major surface: Roku, Fire TV, Samsung TV Plus, Apple TV, iOS, Android, and web.

Big Streaming won't win the next era of streaming. The platform that wins will have an audience with a structural reason to stay — and a structural way to shape what it becomes.

03 STIRR · The Platform

Free to watch. Yours to own.

STIRR delivers what streaming abandoned: the user. Live channels, classic films, a curated VOD catalog — free, on every screen you already own. No subscription. No paywall. Built to be funded by aligned advertising and owned by its audience.

168
Channels
38 live news + 130 entertainment
Available Everywhere You Stream
Distribution
iOS · Android · Roku · Fire TV · Apple TV · Samsung TV+ · Web
$21B+
CTV Ad Spend
2026 addressable market, 24.1% CAGR through 2028 (eMarketer)
NA + EMEA
Audience Reach
Active viewers in North America and Europe today
Seven years operating. Millions in revenue across CTV, mobile, and web.
Available on
Experience STIRR stirr.com — opens in a new tab
04 The Local News Layer

Big Streaming never solved local.

Big Streaming doesn't carry local news. Netflix doesn't. Disney+ doesn't. Max doesn't. The economics never worked — too fragmented for national platforms, too small per market, too contextual for algorithmic optimization.

STIRR carries it. 38 station partnerships across Sinclair, Hubbard, and Griffin Media bring 24/7 local news to 24% of U.S. households. 200+ DMA-level integrations already operational. The local journalism cable abandoned, on the platform built to own it differently.

USA map with yellow-pinned station partners across major markets including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Memphis, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston
38
Station Partners
24%
U.S. Household Coverage
24/7
Local News Coverage

Economically irrational for a national competitor to replicate at scale. The partnerships took years to assemble; replicating them would require starting from zero against a dwindling timeline.

05 The Architecture

Three positions Big Streaming can't reach.

An ownership model incumbents won't copy. A cost basis they can't match. A distribution layer they can't build.

i.
Structural innovation

Fan Ownership & The Affinity Network

The Affinity Network is not a loyalty program. Loyalty programs reward you for spending more time, money, or attention. Our Affinity Network gives you a structural reason to stay.

The architecture turns ownership into governance, and governance into the daily experience of the platform. Owners don't just hold shares — they vote on what gets greenlit, what gets prioritized, what the platform becomes.

  • Reg CF community equity
  • Governance for owner-shareholders
  • Owner's Pass = the daily surface
ii.
A whole new way

Technology & Platform

Big Streaming's cost basis is their org chart. Ours is an AI-native operating model that ships what large teams ship — at a fraction of the cost.

We rebuilt STIRR end-to-end in two months. Streaming Intelligence — our AI-native discovery and experience layer — is in development today, with Reg CF capital funding the build.

For viewers, this means a streaming experience that adapts to you in real time: conversational discovery that surfaces what you want, a home screen that composes itself based on what you watch, and an ad experience that respects your attention. Big Streaming's user experience is locked behind subscription tiers and design committees. Ours composes around the user.

  • AI-native operating model · two-month rebuild
  • Streaming Intelligence · in development, Reg CF funded
  • NVIDIA Inception · Eleven Labs Startup Grant
iii.
The moat Big Streaming can't build

Local News Distribution

The distribution moat detailed in Section 04. Big Streaming structurally won't carry local news — too fragmented, too small-market, too operationally complex. STIRR runs it because the partnership infrastructure took years to assemble and is economically irrational to replicate.

  • Sinclair · Hubbard · Griffin Media
  • Years to assemble, irrational to replicate

No single moat is sufficient. Together they create a position competitors cannot reach without dismantling their own business model.

The Affinity Network · Made visible

The Owner's Pass is where the loop becomes legible.

The daily surface where being an owner actually changes what you see and what you can do. Three layers stack beneath it — and each one has a proven precedent.

Three-layer architecture
L1
Equity
Precedent · Reg CF / DealMaker
L2
Recognition & Rewards
Precedent · Legion M
L3
Incentives
Precedent · Braintrust
Each layer has a working precedent.
  • L1 · Equity Reg CF / DealMaker signed
  • L2 · Recognition Legion M fan recognition at scale
  • L3 · Incentives Braintrust incentive-aligned token utility

We're stacking what's already been proven, on a platform built to carry them.

We're not building a platform alone. We're building it with the people the platform answers to.

06 Who We Serve

Three audiences. One platform.

Built for viewers, creators, and partners. STIRR operates at the intersection of three audiences the streaming industry has historically failed. Each has a structural reason STIRR exists.

i.
Audiences

For the people who watch.

Free streaming, local news, no subscription tier, no paywall. Streaming Intelligence makes the catalog findable through conversation rather than thumbnail walls. The Owner's Pass converts viewers into shareholders with governance rights — turning audience into platform direction.

What STIRR enables A streaming experience that doesn't extract from the people watching it.
ii.
Creators & content owners

For the people who make it.

AI-native catalog operations make content findable, contextual, and properly attributed. Composable content surfaces give independent producers and rights-holders distribution paths the walled gardens won't open. Programmatic value flow that reverses the extraction layer where less than seven cents of every ad dollar reaches the creator.

What STIRR enables Distribution and value flow without the chokepoint.
iii.
Demand partners

For the people who advertise.

Programmatic ad infrastructure on OpenRTB 2.6. AI-native audience routing across a 38-station DMA footprint. Inventory that's targetable, brand-safe, and yielding premium PMP rates today — Zeta at $21.22 CPM as proof point. Six-plus billion monthly ad opportunities, growing.

What STIRR enables Premium CTV inventory at scale, with the demand-side rails to support it.

The platform compounds when each constituency benefits. The Affinity Network is the structural mechanism that aligns them.

07 Why Now

The forces converging. The moment to build is now.

Thinking Media isn't building STIRR's next chapter in a vacuum. Three forces are converging at exactly the moment we have the platform, the audience, and the architecture to meet them.

01 Technology shift

Software changed. Media is next.

Software just changed categories. For sixty-five years, building software meant telling computers how to do something — spec the system, write the procedure, ship the binary. The cost was in the procedure.

Outcome-oriented computing inverts this. Operators describe what they want; AI agents handle the procedure. A small team ships what a large team used to ship. STIRR is the proof — a full streaming platform rebuilt and relaunched by a small team in two months.

The deeper change is what comes next. Media interfaces are moving from pre-built to composed. Static catalogs become dynamic experiences. The home screen builds itself per viewer per moment. Composability — modular, AI-readable, agent-orchestrated — is the operating principle of the next generation of media platforms.

Thinking Media is already inside this shift. Streaming Intelligence is our AI-native discovery and experience layer — the platform's path from static catalog to composed experience, where AI builds interfaces in real time, catalogs reshape per viewer per session, and the home screen becomes a dynamic agent-orchestrated surface rather than a static grid.

Use of Proceeds Reg CF funds the experience innovation this enables.
02 Ownership question

Media consolidation reaches its end state.

Big Streaming has consolidated. Disney owns Hulu, ABC, ESPN, and the studio. Paramount-Skydance. NBCUniversal. Warner Bros Discovery. The real problem isn't that streaming consolidated — it's who owns the consolidation. Decisions about what gets greenlit, what gets carried in the local news cycle, what gets distributed at scale are concentrated in a handful of operators whose interests don't align with audiences, creators, or local communities.

Fan ownership is the structural alternative. Not different from concentrated ownership — the alternative to who owns it. STIRR is positioned to be the first platform-scale answer to that consolidation question.

03 Capital infrastructure

The retail capital stack just matured.

Five years ago, raising community equity at scale was operationally difficult. DealMaker, Republic, StartEngine, Wefunder — the infrastructure has matured. Form C / Form D / Form 1-A workflows are now turnkey. Investor onboarding, KYC/AML, payments, shareholder services — all operating at SaaS-grade reliability.

Recent comp raises validate the rails: Oakland Ballers ($1.235M in nine days), Skybound ($18M from 5,000 fans), Newsmax (Reg A to IPO), Green Coffee Co and The Flyover (both hitting $5M maximum in 2026). The infrastructure exists. The precedents are recent. The operational know-how is transferable.

Tens of thousands of people have already participated in retail-capital media at smaller scale. What's missing is the platform-scale opportunity — a way to participate in building the streaming platform itself. That's the moment.

The trajectory STIRR is following — bridge to Reg CF to accredited expansion to public listing — wasn't operationally possible at this scale before. It is now. STIRR's timing isn't aspirational; it's coincident with the maturation of the rails that make this kind of capital formation routine.

The technology has shifted. The audience is ready. The moment is now.

The investment thesis loop

Three steps. One return mechanism.

  1. 01
    Build cheap and fast
    because the technology paradigm shifted.
  2. 02
    Community capital funds
    the cost-advantaged build.
  3. 03
    Owners share in the upside.
    The loop closes.
08 Investor & Press

The Affinity Economy needs a platform. We're building it.

STIRR is preparing a Reg CF community equity round under Thinking Media, Inc. as issuer of record. The trajectory is fixed: bridge round → Reg CF community rounds → accredited expansion → public liquidity. The specific instruments between Reg CF and Reg A flex based on what works.

Lineage. STIRR is the streaming-platform application of the ownership economy — the structural pattern where the people who build value share in it. Braintrust proved the model for talent networks. We're applying it to streaming.

Operational comps. Newsmax (Reg A → IPO). Angel Studios. Legion M. Oakland Ballers ($1.235M in 9 days). Skybound ($18M from 5,000 fans).

The frame. The Affinity Economy. STIRR is the platform-scale exemplar.

i.
TTW Reservation

The consumer-facing reservation page for the Reg CF offering. Free to watch. Yours to own.

stirr-ttw.vercel.app
ii.
Investor Manifesto

The full structural argument — why an ownable streaming platform is the next operating layer of media.

Read the manifesto
iii.
Press Kit

Logos, founder bios, factsheets, and the platform-scale brief. Available on request for credentialed press.

press@thinkingmedia.ai
iv.
Bridge Round Conversation

For sophisticated investors evaluating the bridge round. Direct line to the founder.

todd@thinkingmedia.ai
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Reserve yours
You don't have to wait for the Reg CF to participate. Claim your Owner's Pass today .
The platform is built with the people who join it — early reservations shape what gets built first.

The reservation campaign at stirr-ttw.vercel.app is being conducted under SEC Rule 206 (Testing-the-Waters). It is not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy securities. No money is being solicited; if sent, it will not be accepted. Any offer to buy securities will be made only through formal offering documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, when filed.

DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA / SIPC, is the intended Reg CF intermediary.

Further reading Evan Shapiro on the Affinity Economy

09 Leadership

Built by people who've spent careers fixing what television broke.

Thinking Media's leadership combines deep streaming operations experience, content and partnership expertise, and the cross-functional capability to operate a platform-scale media business.

Todd Carter, CEO & Co-Founder of Thinking Media
Todd Carter
CEO & Co-Founder

Two decades operating media and platform companies. Previously led product and strategy roles across consumer streaming and broadcast technology. Leads Thinking Media's capital strategy, partner network, and corporate development.

todd@thinkingmedia.ai
Scott Schlichter, COO & Co-Founder of Thinking Media
Scott Schlichter
COO & Co-Founder

Engineering and product leadership across distributed media systems. Architect of STIRR's local aggregation layer and rebuilt platform stack. Oversees platform operations, station partnerships, and the Owner's Pass governance architecture.

scott@thinkingmedia.ai
Advisors
To be announced

Thinking Media is assembling a board of advisors across streaming distribution, securities law, and fan-equity governance. Announcements coming with the bridge round close.

Updates with bridge close

Read also Investor Manifesto STIRR TTW Experience STIRR

10 Frequently Asked

Questions you might be asking. Direct answers, no hedge.

The questions sophisticated readers ask after the headline pitch. If you're a press contact, an institutional investor, or a partner evaluating engagement, this is where to start.

01 What is Thinking Media, Inc.?

Thinking Media, Inc. is the parent company and issuer of record for STIRR. We acquired STIRR from Sinclair Broadcast Group, relaunched the platform on our own technical stack, and have been operating it across CTV, mobile, and web for several years since. STIRR is our flagship product; Thinking Media is the corporate entity.

02 What exactly was acquired from Sinclair?

A thin-asset transaction — the STIRR brand, the developer accounts across the major distribution platforms (Roku, Fire TV, Samsung TV Plus, Apple TV, iOS, Android, Web), and the seven-year install base. The platform infrastructure, content licenses, and engineering team did not transfer. We rebuilt all of it within sixty days of acquisition.

03 How long has Thinking Media been operating STIRR?

Several years. The platform has been continuously operated by Thinking Media since acquisition, with the relaunched stack rolling out across all major distribution surfaces. The operating data — engagement, content performance, monetization metrics — reflects Thinking Media's operating tenure, distinct from the seven-year accumulated brand history.

04 Where is Thinking Media incorporated and headquartered?

Thinking Media, Inc. is a Delaware C-Corporation. [Headquarters location to be filled — confirm with Todd before publication.]

05 What's the current capital status?

We're closing a $250K bridge round (SAFE structure) ahead of launching a Reg CF community equity round under Thinking Media as issuer of record. The bridge funds the Testing-the-Waters phase that precedes the Reg CF launch. Specific terms (valuation cap, discount rate, MFN provisions) are available in the term sheet on request.

06 Who is the Reg CF intermediary?

The intended Reg CF intermediary is DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA / SIPC. DealMaker has powered Reg CF raises for the Oakland Ballers, Legion M, and other media-sector issuers. Final intermediary confirmed in the Form C when filed.

07 What does the Reg CF fund?

Catalog expansion, monetization infrastructure (including pause ads and advanced targeting), station partnership growth, audience development on existing surfaces, Streaming Intelligence buildout (our AI-native discovery and experience layer), and the operational rollout of the Owner's Pass and Affinity Network architecture. Specific use of proceeds appears in the Form C when filed.

08 How does the capital path work?

The trajectory is fixed: bridge → Reg CF community rounds → accredited expansion → public liquidity. The specific instruments between Reg CF and Reg A flex based on what works. The same operational pathway companies like Newsmax, Angel Studios, Legion M, and Oakland Ballers have proven. SEC rules limit specific representations about future offerings; the Form C will provide a fuller picture when filed.

09 How can press, partners, or institutional investors reach Thinking Media?

Press: contact via the email listed in the footer. Partners (broadcast, content, ad-tech, strategic): same. Institutional investors exploring the bridge round: contact todd@thinkingmedia.ai directly. Term sheets and the full deck available on request to qualified parties.

10 Is there a press kit available?

Yes. Press kit (founder bios, photos, brand assets, narrative anchors) available on request. press@thinkingmedia.ai.

Don't see your question? hello@thinkingmedia.ai.